


Constellations

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post-Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, The Reichenbach Fall, john fell instead of sherlock, john is all alone, platonic johnlock - Freeform, sherlock is all alone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock was called away from Bart's that day. He knew it was a trick but thought it might be important. John went to the face-off on the roof. John was threatened with Sherlock's death. John jumped to save Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and everyone's favorite high functioning sociopath. Sherlock is left behind, lost in waves of change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first things to go were the armchairs. They were unnecessary and bulky and, since the fall, unused. As dust built up and caught in the fabric it hid their shape, color, and eventually all the memories they held under a thick, soft, smooth, even coat of grey. So they had to go. Sherlock burned John’s in an empty lot in the country, and wordlessly returned his own to Mycroft’s basement (dungeon) where it had lived before he rescued it to furnish Baker Street. Even after John’s chair was nothing but a scorched, smoking skeleton beneath the endless grey night sky, he crouched by the embers until morning, then took the first train back to london. 

The television was donated to Mrs. Hudson when hers broke.

Then the curtains, fed scrap by scrap into the tiny fireplace for hours. The cheap green vinyl sofa that came with the apartment was moved to furnish 221c, in the hopes that someone might someday find it homey. the mirror over the fireplace was shattered in a fit of lonely anger, the pieces gathered into a pile by bare, bloodied hands. The bookcases were cleared; scientific journals and novels alike piled into unmarked cardboard boxes in the hallway to the untouched upstairs bedroom. The miscellaneous clutter of the flat was unceremoniously pushed into bags and boxes, stacked in a wall of cardboard against the 3rd floor wall. the walls were stripped. all of the paintings, photos and drawings were sold, burned or put in portfolio-style accordion folders upstairs with the boxes. The tables and not-built-in bookshelf were burned. The wallpaper was torn down. The walls were painted white. The flat was pale, empty, echoing and impersonal.  
When Mrs. Hudson fell down again, he was there to call an ambulance and he watched helplessly as she was taken away. Five days later, he began charging for his detective work. Not much, just a little more than enough to pay the rent, so Mrs. Hudson could afford her hospital bills and her new painkillers. 

The kitchen was kept clean. When he ate, he ate out, quickly, and never went to Angelo’s anymore. 

His bedroom had always been empty. He had a bed. He had a dresser containing some clothing. He took the periodic table off the wall and put it upstairs with everything else. He rarely slept there. Instead he paced endlessly, day and night, letting his racing mind wander the streets of London, Tokyo and Paris while he hid. When he slept he fell, first staggering, then stumbling, then sliding to the floor of the empty flat from sheer exhaustion. Before he was alone sleep was a waste of time, a waste of a great mind, but it was pleasant enough, similar to sex. In sleep his mind was free to wander the stars, he explored worlds and constellations that no one else had ever seen. Reality blurred with imagination and facts became irrelevant, but that was before. Ever since the fall, he slept only when he physically could no longer stop himself either with caffeine or pacing or thinking. 

He understood the nightmares John had suffered from, he understood the pain of helplessness and loss. In daylight he was full of darkness, but in sleep he was empty and consumed by false hope, which was infinitely worse. 

There were no more body parts in the fridge. In fact, there was nothing in the fridge. At first unpleasant smells had spilled out of it, but Mrs Hudson cleaned those things up before she hurt her hip again. Now he ate out, he no longer experimented except when necessary for cases, and he had no use for it. The microscope stayed on the otherwise bare kitchen table. 

Life fell into routine. He paced. Sometimes he sat. Summer came and went and cases were solved in minutes, hours, days. His coat was burned in a chemical warehouse fire and Lestrade bought him a new one as a thank you. London lived on. Mrs. Hudson was released from the hospital, Lestrade signed the papers for his divorce, meaningless people lived out their bland, meaningless lives. 

Nothing Changed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jawn gets shit done.  
> John's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'ed, not britpicked. Please tell me what you think and/or leave corrections.

John watched the sunset through the floor-to ceiling window of a strange woman’s flat.

It wasn’t much to look at. 

It had rained all day and the clouds looked a bit soggy. It was the kind of grey day that gets greyer and greyer until it fades away into something resembling a fuzzy, vague night as the streetlights came on. The world kept turning and the sun fell behind sooner than John had expected. He stood with his back against a wall and watched the shadows reclaimed the warmth the weak London sun had loaned the pavement outside. He pulled his jacket closer, feeling the outline of his illegal gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. 

On the day of the fall he had been running off adrenaline. On an empty stomach, desperation and duty poured adrenaline into him as they ran through the empty streets like blood in the veins of the city, hot and desperate. 

Sherlock had always dismissed Molly as slow, blind, ignorant and content with mediocrity, but on that day she was exceptional. 

She had known what to do when he told her that he was supposed to be lying dead on the pavement outside. She was the one who got John safely inside the hospital, listened quietly as he rushed through the necessary explanations, and faked the autopsy. She made the arrangements for his funeral with Mycroft, she did the legal work to clear Sherlock’s name, she did everything that needed to be done with the utmost discretion. 

John had expected to lie low and watch Moriarty’s network fall apart without his fatherly guidance, but since it was run on a need-to-know basis in the first place it took a lot longer than he had expected, so he decided to push things along by hunting down the hit men who were supposed to kill Sherlock, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. 

Two were gone. The last, the only woman of the 3, was supposed to be out tracking Sherlock that day. He was in her flat, his back against the wall by the door, waiting for her to get home so he could shoot her. 

Whenever footsteps grew closer on the steps outside he started and put a hand on his gun out of habit more than anything else.

Time oozed by. 

He began to wonder if she was coming home, if she had a date, if she was already dead, if he was waiting in vain. He had to pee. He had to stretch. He needed some tea. He needed to focus.  
He took out his gun and looked at it. He tried (and failed) to not think about the people he had left behind when he jumped off of Bart’s. 

A key turned in the lock. He deactivated the safety on his gun without making a noise. The door swung open and she walked in wearing yoga pants and an Oxford t-shirt that had seen better days. Her hands were full of bags from Tesco’s, and he politely waited until she had put down her bags and was toeing off her damp trainers to shoot her neatly in the back of the neck. He stepped forward and eased her writhing body to the floor, studiously ignoring the words she was dramatically choking out. He put a pillow under her back to soak up some of the blood, rinsed his hands in her sink, put his gun back in his pants and took off.

Four streets away he stopped and slid down a damp brick wall, drowning in conflicting feelings. On the one hand, he was finished. 3 murders, one fake suicide, and almost 12 lonely months later, he was finally finished. All the key players in Moriarty’s network were dead or scattered, Sherlock was safe, he could go home.

On the other hand, he had just killed a civilian woman he’d never met before, and sniper or not, that was a bit not good. He was living on the run, hiding from his best friend and the government. He was shamelessly using Molly as his one connection, he was leading someone else's life. Sometimes he felt slightly hypocritical for all the times he'd accused Sherlock of being cold and ruthless and heartlessly using people to get what he wanted.

'But that’s okay,' he thought, 'because it can end now. I can go home.'

He stood up, straightened his jacket, rolled his shoulders back, and set out for Baker Street.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been one year, to the day. London is sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not beta'ed, not brit-picked. if you'd like to do either, short term or long term, I'd be very grateful. I'm sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies.   
> Infinite thanks to KyralianKyliann for encouragement, and happy birthday to MonikerHazard!  
> Please tell me if I've made mistakes.

London wept.

On the anniversary of the day that John Watson, soldier, bodyguard, friend, assistant detective and doctor extraordinaire, fell from the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital and his friend crouched by his still body on the bloody pavement outside, London shook sobbed and hid herself in thick, dark clouds. 

The city mourned for the doctor, and, watching from a 4th floor window in the hospital, the doctor planned for spring.

-

London is full of stars.

The never ending clouds and the smog and the noise and pollution, the hot, violent humanity of the city rose higher and higher and pushed past the sky into space and all the stars above London fell and stuck in the windows of the homes below, but Sherlock had deleted the solar system from his hard drive and his life, and the only light to touch his windows had been from John’s borrowed stars. But John is gone, and 221B is darkness in a sea of shining, shifting gold, still beneath the storm.

The rain beats down harder as the night drags on, and Sherlock keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling, running silent circles inside his skull, torturing himself with questions that don’t have clean, shiny, scientific answers and should therefore never be spoken.

Tension ripples through the flat and flattens against the walls, pushing the oxygen out of the rooms as it grows denser. The rain drowns out Sherlock’s thoughts and it drowns out the indignant buzzing of his phone, forgotten on the dresser.

He curls in on himself under his blankets, and waits for the clouds to wear themselves down.

The world fades into a haze of drugs and sleep, colors and growing, creeping, burning darkness at the edge of everything.

Life fades away with it,, and Sherlock falls into a troubled sleep, curled around John’s old army browning.

-

Buzz. Pause. Buzz. Pause. Buzz. Soft, hurried footsteps and a door opening, muffled by walls. Heavy footsteps. Male. Tall. Confident. Tired. Voices. The footsteps have reached the stairs, and they climb. The door to the flat opens without a knock, and the word “rude” floats across Sherlock’s hazy, semi-conscious mind.

The voices and footsteps stop.

A hand lands on the bedroom door knob. It clicks open and Sherlock can’t quite bring himself to care who’s standing over his bed, staring at the bare curve of his spine.

Large hands reach for John’s gun, barely passing into Sherlock’s line of sight.

A cold ring barely brushes his bicep, and long, familiar fingers close around the gun. Mycroft, then. Sherlock sniffs and hesitantly releases it, sighing at the loss and pulling the blanket closer to replace the warm metal.

His sigh is matched by his brother’s, and the gun is placed on the dresser.

“Have you eaten.”

It’s not a question, and Sherlock doesn't answer. They both know he hasn't. The hands are back, pulling the blanket away, revealing ribs outlined in shadow and pale skin. He has no strength to fight, but he tenses against the cold air, pulling bruised knees up to his chest and holding his rib cage together with shaking arms.

Mycroft leaves his umbrella leaning against the door frame and steps across the room, opening the curtains. Fading grey light stains the sheets, and Sherlock shies away from it with a quiet groan. He doesn't react to the touch of his brother’s hand on his shoulder, though he craves the warmth.

“I just came by to bring some food. See that you eat it.” Mycroft waits for Sherlock to say “yes,” to say “thank you,” to say anything, but the traffic and the rain are the only sounds in the room. 

The hand moves to Sherlock’s forehead, pushing back dark hair, then disappears. 

Footsteps fade. The door to the flat closes. Voices. Ms. Hudson. Hushed tones. The front door. A loud sigh.

The rain drips down the windows in twisting rivulets, drops running together and pulling apart, throwing writhing shadows and ephemeral spots of light on the ceiling and walls. Sherlock sniffs again and pushes himself up into a sitting position. His phone buzzes and he tries to throw a pillow at it, but he’s weak and it flops softly on the floor. He sighs and falls back on the mattress, disappointed, before swinging his bare legs out of bed.

He staggers over to the dresser and glances at his phone - 7 unread texts - before clutching at the gun again. It’s not loaded; Mycroft took all the ammunition in the house after the last time he caught Sherlock crouched in the corner, hugging it close to his body, wide eyed and strung out. Still, the familiar weight is comforting. It’s part of another life. A better one.

He hasn't left the flat in days. He doesn't know how many. He doesn't know how long he sleeps. Sometimes he drops off and when he wakes up it’s still 3 in the morning and he can’t tell if it’s been 3 minutes or 3 days. 

He pulls on a pair of trousers and drops his phone into a pocket, and wanders into the kitchen.

The kitchen table is one of the only pieces of furniture left in the flat that John ever touched, and Sherlock puts his hands on the smooth wood and closes his eyes, imagining armchairs and tea and canes and sarcasm and newspapers. 

When he feels tears on his cheeks he opens his eyes, turns away, and unlocks his phone. Texts are simple, texts are easy, he can handle texts.

Lestrade wants to get drinks. John’s mother wants to be sad together. Mycroft wants to stop by. Mycroft wants to apologize. Molly wants to talk. An unknown number has “important information.” Mycroft wants to apologize again.

Sherlock replies-

to Lestrade - no.

to John’s mother - no.

to Mycroft - no.

to Mycroft - no.

to Molly - no.

to the unknown number - no.

to Mycroft - no.

He slowly turns the phone over and over, staring out the tall windows. 

He briefly considers going to Tesco’s, investigating a murder, committing a murder, stealing a car, buying more cocaine.

He sighs, turns off his phone, and goes back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suggestions? thoughts? there's a comment button. please use it :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John is not a teenager and sends a text. Or three.

sent : 18:26 : visit him -JW

received : 18:27 : Later. - MH

sent : 18:27 : Now. -JW

received : 18:28 : I’m working. -MH

sent : 18:29 : You owe it to us both. He’s alone. -JW

Minutes keep flicking past, and the storm is muffled by the thick walls and windows of the building. John feels distinctly mycroft-esque and uncomfortably powerful, standing in front of the floor to ceiling window, feet shoulders width apart, hands loosely clasped around his phone behind his back, just watching the dark window across the street.

received : 18:36 : fine. -MH

John nods sharply to himself and slips his phone back into his coat pocket, turning sharply on his good leg and marches to the empty chrome kitchen to make some tea.

While the water is heating, John muses that if he had one super power it would be laser vision, primarily for the purpose of heating water for tea quickly and cheaply, especially in war zones and power outages.

10 minutes later he’s returned to his previous position in front of the window, staring straight ahead, now holding a half-empty mug of tea in his right hand and turning his phone over and over in his left, the picture of indecision. Finally, just as Mycroft’s expensively nondescript black car pulls up to the opposite kerb, he makes a decision.

sent :18:46 : I’ve got some very important information about something you might want back.

And he waits. Mycroft gets out of the car, and even from across the street and two floors up John can see the exhaustion in his step, the weight of other peoples’ secrets, slowly pulling him closer to the core of the earth. For a moment Johns almost feels sorry for him, but then remembers why he’s here instead of across the street, why Sherlock’s lights are out, why they've each been alone for the past year, and he spends longer than is polite deciding whether or not to shoot Mycroft after all.

The rain twists and writhes with the wind, streaking the glass and blurring his view. The light patter of the water droplets on glass is hard, erratic and unpredictable. It reminds him of very quiet, distant, watery gunfire, as if he’s underwater, back in Afghanistan.

The sheer absurdity of that thought snaps him back to reality, and he watches Mycroft step back out of 221b, elegant and sad in dark colors, as if mourning someone still living.

His phone buzzes and he jerks, spilling cold tea on to the dark hardwood floor. He forces himself to slip his phone into his pocket, walk into the kitchen, and find a towel to wipe up the spill before sliding past the lock screen.

received: 19:05 : no.

He looks down. The floor looks comfortable. He contemplates sitting down on it. Lying down on it. Letting it swallow him. Sinking through it and never being heard from again. He doesn't, because he’s a soldier, and sinking through the floor is for teenagers and the recently dumped. On further consideration, however, he realizes that considering the text he just recieved he might fit into the latter category. 

He ignores the thought and unlocks his phone again.

So he’s not entirely level-headed and definitely not prepared for human interaction when he types in the number he’s had memorized since his second week at Baker street. All things considered, it’s probably a good thing that it goes straight to voicemail. That might have gone poorly otherwise. So, as the far-off light across the street (At the end of the tunnel) blinks out, he sends another text.

sent: 19:13 : You need what I have, and you've got nothing to lose, do you? Lunch, Angelo’s, 12:00. I’m buying.

sent: 19:14 : Do you miss him?

The flat across the street is dark and silent again, and John doesn't really expect a reply. He sits carefully on the bed, placing his gun on the nightstand more out of habit than fear. He’s not happy or satisfied or even reluctantly content, but they're both alive and capable of texting and he’s (hopefully) got a (not really) date, so... that’s something, right? “not really...” he thinks, and quickly squashes the doubt down with mundane things that need doing.

“Brush your teeth. Now change into pajamas. Now put your clothes away. Now put your phone next to your gun **don't text him again!**  Now check that the door’s locked. Now check that the kettle’s off. Now turn off the light. Now get in bed. Now stop thinking.”

He falls asleep faster than he expects to, and dreams of protecting Sherlock from armies of water-gun wielding small children wearing gas masks.

He wakes up startled by bright, brilliant daylight shining through the window, and wonders what could possibly go wrong when the sun is shining in London. Some song is playing on the radio as he makes tea and glances at the paper, and the words circle in his head- _Put an ocean and a river between everything, yourself, and home. You must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain..._

He steps out into the sunlight at 11:30, full of sunshine and boundless hope. The song plays all the way to Angelo’s; _you must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain. You must be somewhere in London, walking Abbey lane..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i actually felt kind of good about this chapter, it was weird?!?! The song is England, by the National and it is my inspiration for all things good.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Sherlock's phone is dead (just like John) and he's very hungry.

When Sherlock wakes up, the rain has stopped and the kind of reluctant, pale, apologetic sunshine that follows rainy days is poking through the window. It washes the walls of his bedroom in a pale, light green that reminds him of spring leaves and soft, fuzzy mold and torn Luna Moth wings. He resolutely shoves all yesterday’s lingering thoughts of fading blond hair and tan lines off the hospital roof in his mind and leaves them to die on the metaphorical pavement below. When he pokes one long leg out from under the covers, the chilly air is enough of a deterrent to push him back under the blankets for the next few hours.

****

~

****

He’s pulled out of darkness again by the sharp dance of red-tinted sunlight through his eyelids. He smiles to himself. It’s been a year. He’s survived a year alone. Protected. 

He half-rolls out of bed, barely catching himself on weak arms before his arse hits the floor, and hauls himself to his feet. He sways down the hall towards the shower, stripping as he goes. New day. Life is moving on and he’s resolved to move with it. 

When he drifts into the kitchen, the food he didn’t eat last night is still sitting on the table, and he sweeps it off into the bin without opening the box. It sat out all night - he knows better than most the kinds of things that like to grow on food.

Now. On to the task of resuming normal life. What do people do, when they’re living their lives? Tea. Tea is good. Water. You need hot water for tea. Oh, and a tea bag. Um. Newspaper. He loves newspapers -  fairytales... and pretty grim ones - **no**. Not going there. Phone. Phones are fun, with all their little buttons and worlds locked behind screens. Sherlock scoops up his iphone on the way out of the kitchen, having given up on tea on the (perfectly logical and not at all childish) basis that water takes too long to heat. The screen glows white for a moment, flashes the time (11.47) before displaying a low battery message and promptly going dark. Sherlock scowls eloquently and turns it on again. This time he manages to slide the bar and unlock it before it goes dark. He tries again. No luck. It’s deader than everyone he ever loved. He stands up with a long suffering sigh and plugs it in to the wall charger, cord blending into the white wall as it snakes toward the floor. 

He wanders around the empty flat. He starts climbing the steps, thinks better of it, and backs down. He stares at the closed door at the top of the steps for a few minutes. He drifts back into the kitchen, thinking about making tea or a cake or possibly a bomb. He’s a bit dizzy and the room starts to tip a bit and then it’s tipping a lot and he’s a bit nervous because this feeling is horribly familiar and the doorframe is too far away and the edges of his vision are getting fuzzy. Vague repetitive buzzing from near the fireplace is the last thing he remembers before waking up sore and bruised on the kitchen floor. 

****

~

  
Food. He should eat. that explains so much... he hasn’t eaten in... um... it’s actually been quite a while. It’s been... he should really eat something. The fridge is white and empty and smells like bleach and it makes his head swim. He grabs his phone, wallet and keys and sways out the door. He brushes past Ms. Hudson’s questioning glances and surprised sentence fragments, and nearly blacks out again when he opens the door to the flat. The noises and smells of London are so familiar and he’s felt dead for a while now, but he’s alive and he _missed_ it dear god if he’s out there, this city is his work, and he’s married to it. 

He steps out into the light and gets climbs into a cab, telling the driver (a 20-ish guy with dark, dark hair and an obscenely large nose - he’s started noticing cabbies) to get him to Angelo’s. When he’s poked awake he’s disoriented and panicky, and he throws some bills at the driver before staggering in to the restaurant. Someone’s sitting at his favorite table but he can’t spare the energy to scowl at them. He’s not sure where Angelo is and he hasn’t been there in so long and everything is so _different_ , but it still smells like basil, which is somehow extremely comforting. He slides into a chair at an empty table for two pushed against a wall, and grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes. He sees movement out of the corner of his eye as the guy at his normal table stands up and starts moving in odd, jerky movements like he’s scared or embarrassed or guilty or hurt and he’s got a bad limp but then Angelo is there, and the table-thief sits back down. Angelo is offering all kinds of irrelevant opinions and he’s saying something and he obviously _cares_ and Sherlock’s not listening anymore but then somehow there’s pasta and bread and it’s hot and delicious and the ground stops shifting under him for the first time that day. 

Angelo goes to wait on his normal table and falls into a conversation there. Sherlock scoops the last few bites of spaghetti into his mouth and licks his lips. A black and navy blur appears beside him. Sherlock ignores it. The blur moves in front of him. He ignores it. The blur speaks in a horrible, painfully soft and familiar voice, full of fear and uncertainty. 

“Sherlock,”

He freezes. 

Sherlock lifts his head slowly towards the sound and the blur condenses into lines and colors, grey and blond hair, black jumper and dark jeans and a cane and a fading tan and the world isn’t tipping this time, it’s shaking and it’s cracking in half and reality is irrelevant and everything’s just _wrong_ and then, for the second time that day, everything goes mercifully black.


End file.
